Cairo: Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi Saturday urged his compatriots to be patient, two days after the country suffered a massive power outage.
“I ask Egyptians to be patient until we overcome all crises together,” he said in a televised address.
“Neither the government nor I can solve the problems and face challenges without people’s backing.”
The hours-long blackout, the worst to hit Egypt in two decades, crippled Cairo’s Underground Metro, public services and facilities in several provinces of the country.
Al Sissi, who took office in June on a platform to revitalise economy, said Saturday that Egypt would need 130 billion Egyptian pounds (Dh65 billion) in five years to develop its power facilities and meet its energy needs.
“This is a big problem that needs patience and diligence from everyone,” he added.
Egypt has suffered from almost daily electricity cuts in recent months.
The government says the problem, Egypt’s worst in recent years, is due to fuel supply shortages, and “subversive “attacks allegedly carried out by backers of deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi. “There are some persons and groups, who work to cripple some weak utilities so as to affect Egyptians and make them angry,” Al Sissi said, apparently referring to Mursi’s loyalists. “We are fighting an existential battle.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors in the coastal city of Suez on Saturday ordered the jailing of four electricity officials for four days pending further investigations over alleged plans for subversive action on power plants, legal sources said on Saturday.
The suspects are members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the sources added.
It was not clear if they had any link to Thursday’s blackout that also hit Suez.
Minister of Electricity Mohammad Shaker has attributed the outage to a technical problem in a major power plant west of Cairo.
Last month, Egyptian authorities sacked several senior officials in the state-run electricity companies over ties with Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Authorities have repeatedly accused the Brotherhood of involvement in violence and seeking to undermine the state. Thousands of the group’s followers have been rounded up since Mursi’s overthrow in July 2013. In December last year, the government labelled the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.
